[nickf]

We have phone free events (some nationals) in Australia, where players check their phone at the door (if they bring them to the venue). Doesnt create much drama as far as I know.

nickf
sydney

[helene_t]

I think it's a kind of masked trade obstruction, to keep the Dutch BridgeMates out of the US.

[TimG]

cherdano, on Mar 9 2008, 09:44 PM, said:

Well you wrote "I am not sure why anyone would [carry a cell phone]", I found it hard to understand how someone who has been at an NABC would write that...

You left out the word "need" from my post. You say you need a cellphone to hook up with friends in other playing areas, I say a cellphone simply makes it marginally easier to do so. "Meet me after the session at" works quite well, and the whole way to the meeting place you can be talking to your partner about the bridge hands you just played instead of taking the time to call your friends. (Which smiley is the good natured one?)

A few years ago, maybe 10 or more, shortly after the ACBL ruled that cellphones must be turned off in the playing area, Allan Falk wrote an article that appeared in the COI Newsletter in which he argued that players should be allowed to have their cellphones with them at the bridge table and keep them turned on. His case went something like this: some people need to be able to be reached at all times (for work) and we don't want to preclude these people from playing in a bridge tournament.

At the time, I thought the argument was silly, surely someone in this type of situation could leave their cellphone off, but check for messages during each "hospitality" break. And, if they really needed to be able to leave the table the moment a call came in, they shouldn't be playing, anyway. (Yes, I know the new rule will prevent even this.)

[blackshoe]

wikipedia said:

The term "mini computer" evolved in the 1960s to describe the “small” third generation computers that became possible with the use of transistor and core memory technologies. The term came in fashion about the same time as the miniskirt and mini cars. They usually took up one or a few cabinets the size of a large refrigerator or two, compared with mainframes that would usually fill a room.

I daresay nobody these days is going to bring a minicomputer to a bridge event — or anywhere else, for that matter.

If as a TD I can't use a computer for scoring, well, I can do manual scoring — but I'm gonna take my own sweet time to do it.

[pclayton]

Take your cell phone to Vegas. Take it to the playing area. DO NOT TAKE IT OUT WHILE YOU ARE IN THE PLAYING AREA. PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION.

Check BBF later on your PDA later. It will still be here.

[JanM]

Elianna, on Mar 9 2008, 10:29 PM, said:

I, for one, cannot imagine what they plan on doing about this.  I mean, if they plan on starting to search people, I can see many deciding not to go to NABCs.

Otherwise, how are they going to enforce the "no cell phones in the playing area"?  My guess is by when one goes off, orr someone just takes one out, which seems to be a rule "No use of cell phones", not "no bringing cell phones".

I agree with Rob, you're going to see a lot of people ignoring the rule.  And not just the under 35s, either.

One reason to do this is to prevent "electronic cheating." It's not just that people can't do it if they don't have electronic devices during the session but also that it is far easier to demonstrate that a person had an electronic device with him or her during the session than it is to prove that the person used the electronic device to pass or receive information.
A second reason is to prevent rumors of "electronic cheating" such as we have seen in the last few months regarding the San Francisco NABC. If people aren't allowed to carry electronic devices, other people won't be able to start rumors that the devices were used inappropriately.
Also, it's important to recognize that this isn't a universal ban - it applies only to the "major" (NABC+) events. Cellphones and other electronic devices are already banned at the Cavendish and USBF tournaments. At those events it has turned out to be reasonably easy for the organizers to collect cellphones, etc at the door of the playing area and return them when play is over. Obviously, with the size of NABCs this isn't going to be possible at an NABC, but we may find that some enterprising people will set up "cellphone booths" where you can check your phone and perhaps even have someone available to answer it should it ring during the session.
As for your practical question about how this can be enforced unless the phone rings, there is equipment available (at a high but not exorbitant price) that will sense the presence of a cellphone, even if it is turned off, in a fairly large area. I don't know whether ACBL will be buying these devices, but they certainly can do so.

Helene_t said:

I think it's a kind of masked trade obstruction, to keep the Dutch BridgeMates out of the US.

ACBL is in the process of testing Bridgemates and Bridgepads to use for scoring and if the rule as written would bar them it will certainly be amended to allow them.

[hrothgar]

I think that we all know why this type of regulation is in place:

I'm sure that folks recall the so-called "Bathroom Incident" from a few years back. Consider the full ramifications of text based messaging and bathroom stalls...

It's become pretty easy for folks to text each other hand information during the course of an event.

I don't think that even the most security concious among us really wants the ACBL protcoring folks when they're sitting on the john. The ACBL is hoping that a cell phone ban might accomplish the same purpose.

Personally, I think that the ACBL is barking up the wrong tree. I don't think that folks are going to pay any attention to a cell phone ban. More over, a cell phone ban is unenforcable. What are you planning to do? Have directors sweept the playing areas looking for Bluetooth enabled devices?

If you want to prevent folks from being able to transmit information about hands the only real course of action is to try to make sure that folks are playing hands simultaneously (or as close to simutaneously as possible).

This means rolling out dealing machines for team events and pairs events and ensuring that everyone plays hand one at (approximately) the same time...

I just saw Jan's post... I guess some thought is being given to sweeping for bugs. While I agree that this might be necessary if you're worried about the "Shoe Phones" that I hypothesized about a few years back, I still rather see the money spent on dealing machines.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on Mar 10 2008, 06:16 PM, said:

As for your practical question about how this can be enforced unless the phone rings, there is equipment available (at a high but not exorbitant price) that will sense the presence of a cellphone, even if it is turned off, in a fairly large area. I don't know whether ACBL will be buying these devices, but they certainly can do so.

Hi Jan

If you hit the power button on a cell phone you don't actually turn the device. The system is still active and is still traceable.

The same can not be said if you pop out the battery. I'd be quite surprised if you can feasibly detect a cell phone sans battery.

More important, I don't think that this is the right course of action.

There are a couple different ways to deal with covert signaling using electronic devices. You're focusing on the devices themselves. How can one design a system to block individuals from being able to use this type of hardware. Here, the best case scenario is a constantly evolving arms race where the cheats try to stay ahead of the snoops...

I think that its better to focus on preventing people from extracting much in the way of benefit even if they are able to use some kind of electronic device.

1. The single most effecacious thing that you can do is improving bidding/play/hand records. The more hand records that you have available the easier it becomes to analyze bidding/play styles. You'll be in a good position to track whether individuals are getting a few too many blind guesses right.

2. If you're really serious about security, delay Vugraph Feeds. I understand that the spectators want to see events in real time. I know that commentators want to be able to ask questions to the operators. Tough luck. I'd be perfectly happy if a constantly 10 minute delay was built into all the broadcasts.

3. As I noted earlier, introduce dealing machines and make sure that folks play boards at the same time.

These are real steps that will yield tangible results.

Unfortuantely, what being done right now feels an awful lot like posturing. The ACBL is doing something thats very visible and very annoying that won't have any real impact on security.

(For what its worth, this is coming from someone who doesn't own a cell phone/ipod/PDA and won't be impacted by the ban in any way, shape, or form)

[hotShot]

How should a TD prove that an electronic device had been used or if a cell phone had been on a few seconds ago. Banning all such devices is much easier than proving their use or the cheating itself. If you are seen with anything, of you go. The TD does not even need to know what kind of device you have. Of cause that does not solve all problems, but it puts the TD in a better position, to deal with the situation.

[hrothgar]

hotShot, on Mar 10 2008, 07:55 PM, said:

How should a TD prove that an electronic device had been used or if a cell phone had been on a few seconds ago. Banning all such devices is much easier than proving their use or the cheating itself. If you are seen with anything, of you go. The TD does not even need to know what kind of device you have. Of cause that does not solve all problems, but it puts the TD in a better position, to deal with the situation.

You are completely correct:

It's much easier to ban all such devices than to prove their use (or cheating itself). Unfortunately, the fact that it is easy to ban all such devices doesn't mean that its a good idea to do so.

Personally, i don't think that anyone would pay any attention to this type of law. Its a big mistake to pass regulations that can't (or won't) be enforced.

I think that its far better to have no law that to have one on the book that isn't ever enforced (or worse yet is selectively enforced). This sort of thing drags down the entire regulatory apparatus...

[TimG]

What's wrong with keeping players in the playing area? I don't think this should be much of a problem for events with 16 (or fewer) board segments. Kibitzers who leave the room will not be re-admitted. And, there should be a real closed room (no kibitzers except for a match recorder who would also not be allowed to leave the room). Boards, of course, would not travel between rooms, they would be staff duplicated.

[rbforster]

JanM, on Mar 10 2008, 10:16 AM, said:

One reason to do this is to prevent "electronic cheating."

Now that everyone's clear that this rule is all about cheating (instead of say, courtesy of phone use which is easily dealt with if an actual interruption occurs), the ACBL needs to ask itself some hard questions -

1. Are there good reasons for players to want to have these devices with them at an event?
2. How many people cheat vs how many people carry cell phones?
3. Will this rule stop determined cheaters?

I would argue that is clear the answers to these are very clearly

1. Yes
2. Very few
3. No way

Elaborating on these,

1. Why phones are useful, etc.

As others have said, NABC's are huge sprawling events and coordinating with partners about getting to the right place at the right time is vastly easier with a cell phone. Meeting up with friends during the non-playing time at the event is also made much much easier with phones, hence the enjoyment of the typical player at the NABC is enhanced and they have a much better experience and are more likely to attend. As someone who's flown into town for just a couple days and tried coordinating meeting up with 15-20 old friends in a short amount of time during their ever-changing plans, I can say cell phones and/or messaging devices are invaluable in this regard. If I could only see a handful of my friends due to ABCL-enforced communication inefficiencies instead, I would be much less likely to bother going. Vegas will be a social event first and a bridge event second for many of the people I know. Hardly anyone will win the big important events there, but almost everyone wants to go and have a good time. This brings me to

2. The relative numbers of good vs bad guys, false positives and their costs

These policies cause a big hassle if actually enforced. You're going to have people checking their cell phones at the door, buying expensive screening machines to look for hidden devices, etc. Now the ACBL is going to get sued when the phone check guy "accidentally" loses somebody's $500 iPhone and I'm sure they won't be willing to pay the screening folks enough to prevent this from being a serious temptation. I'm supposed to check my laptop at the door too, but I wanted to carry it in my backpack since I didn't really want to trust the hotel cleaning staff. I'm supposed to check my iPod too (headphones are evil and all). By the time everyone gets done checking all this stuff (and later reclaiming it), we've probably lost 20-30 minutes that we could have been sleeping, eating lunch, playing bridge, etc, leading to fewer sessions played per day or longer days that are harder on the players since the events have to be spread out by an extra 30 minutes per session and it's a 1.5 hour longer day just to play the same 3 events.

These are the costs, and the costs are born by almost every player. You are causing a huge inconvenience for many innocent people in order to deter a few cheats. And how many people are actually cheating using these devices? Let's see some hard evidence, not just rumors started by technophobes, about the actual magnitude of the problem. I'm sure the answer here is that nobody really knows, maybe there's been a case or two of suspicions, and we're getting some huge overreaction to this perception of potential cheating. Of course even if there's actually some people cheating this way,

3. Will this stuff stop the cheats?

I think the answer here is clearly no. You don't have to go to the bathroom with a cell phone to tell your co-conspirator about the marginal slam hand in this duplicate set. You can just meet him in the bathroom one stall over half way through the set and pass him your notes on the "interesting" hands. Then you flush the notes. No phone or computer required. Don't forget all the old fashion ways of cheating too with hand signals. I'm sure I could come up with quick eye gestures during a pairs rotation that conveyed to my friend in the same rotation that I just played a hand that should be bid unusually conservatively or aggressively due to the lie of the cards. Sure you can concoct elaborate fantasies of wireless single-dummy solving computers broadcasting to old-folks "hearing aids," but this is a long way from what the ACBL is worried about and if you were going to go to that much trouble you'd just play poker or blackjack at Vegas instead of bridge where you could get some real cash for your troubles.

Besides, hasn't the ACBL basically decided that pairs events are a second class format worth only a tiny fraction of the team game's masterpoints? You can't easily cheat in team games in these ways since the boards can be played in short sets of 10 or so without needing a break before swapping boards. There's much fewer opportunities to cheat in that setting, and that's really the only format the real players care about, right?

And lastly, let's not forget the most important thing -

4. Does it even matter?

Sure nobody wants cheaters getting an advantage, but there will always be a few people who choose to cheat and many of them will get away with it. But you can't be a successful cheat in big events since as you play more and more important events you draw more and more scrutiny that will eventually be your undoing. Maybe you could cheat once and win some big event, but you couldn't capitalize on that "reputation" by being a pro or something since now everyone's watching you since they think you're good.


In conclusion, I see this rule as a perfect analogy with the huge expensive and annoying waste of time and money that is airport security screening in the US these days. You spend lots of time and money on expensive machines to screen for innocuous items, hassling your general customer in hopes of making it marginally harder for the bad guys, and even then anyone with half a brain and malicious intent could find a way around the screens and accomplish the same goals anyway. I think the ACBL needs to think long and hard about these issues and then just scrap the whole thing. Richard's suggestions about simultaneous play is a vastly better solution to the cheating issue than anything that could come out of this half-assed, ill-conceived attempt at electronics regulation.

[mycroft]

As I have said before, one bit of information, given by a knowledgeable kibitzer, should be enough for a good player. You don't even have to know what piece of information is being given; assume that if the default signal is given, the "normal" thing to do is right; if the other signal is given, the "decision you're going to have to make" you take the "wrong" way.

Cell phone, on, set to vibrate on call, in one's pocket, if it doesn't go off, make the important decision the normal way, if it does, take the wrong decision. A kibitzer in the vugraph room can send the signal with one touch of a similar cell phone in pocket.

I had no problem from day one with "I'm a doctor, I'm on call, the chance is small, but if it comes in, I have to go." Okay, give me the cell phone, if it rings, I'll answer it and if it's an oncall message, I'll come get you. Never had it happen, but I don't direct full-time.

Heck, I'm on call this week. Did the same thing. Never had it happen when I was playing either.

There are people who can't go 2.5 hours - and I saw one table at the Spingold play 8 boards in 95 minutes, so it can be somewhat more than 2.5 hours - without a bathroom break, a smoke break, or a wander. I think locking them in for that long is going to lead to some embarrassing occasions (though it might speed up some of the perennial slow players).

Michael.

[david_c]

I don't know much about what happens in America. But where I come from, bridge competitions are run for the benefit of the players. The most important thing is making sure your average player has a good time.

Any ban on electronic devices which affected ordinary players would be guaranteed to upset just about everybody.

We do ask people to turn their mobile phones off while playing. You can have penalties for phones ringing if you like. But it is unrealistic to ask them not to bring their phones in at all.

If it's because of the possibility of illicit communication, I think that's truly ridiculous. The danger is barely more than theoretical (and there are plenty of easier ways to cheat at this game), whereas the inconvenience from banning phones is massive.

[Edit:] Perhaps I should say that I do think things might be different in America. You seem to have more than one event running at the same time, and rules for the top events can reasonably be more strict. And there seem to be more pros, who can be expected to accept restrictions for reasons of security as part of what they do. But from what I understand, I don't believe that there is any event at an NABC which warrants such severe restrictions as a complete ban on electronic devices. In a trial or an international event, then yes maybe.

This post has been edited by david_c: 2008-March-10, 13:15

[TimG]

david_c, on Mar 10 2008, 02:06 PM, said:

I don't know much about what happens in America. But where I come from, bridge competitions are run for the benefit of the players. The most important thing is making sure your average player has a good time.

You average player isn't playing in the events for which these rules are intended. And, I do not think it is unreasonable to expect that players who enter NABC Championship events play under different conditions than those playing in the Regionally rated side games (and have fun doing it).

[finally17]

Quote

The same can not be said if you pop out the battery. I'd be quite surprised if you can feasibly detect a cell phone sans battery.

I would be quite surprised if you COULDN'T detect a cell phone without the battery. Have you heard of RFID for instance? An RFID tag requires no battery, is small enough to be included on ID cards which you carry in your wallet, and can be read from pretty great distances (it depends on the tag I'm sure, but the ones on new US passports can be read from 10 meters).

I don't know if cell phones generally have RFID tags in them, but there's some pretty sophisticated electronic circuitry there. It's at best naive to believe that it's not possible to develop something like RFID that would respond to the presence of that circuitry.

If I were a betting man I'd definitely take the bet that such tech exists, and even that someone who knew what they were doing and had a Radio Shack in driving distance could build such a machine.

[matmat]

This makes no sense to me. If I wanted to cheat at bridge I'd mosey over to my local radio shack and get enough electronics parts to install some sort of basic receiver in my shoe, belt, baseball cap, whatever. what's next? the acbl is going to shell out for metal detectors and scanners? are they going to empty out the building if someone runs through them? body cavity search, anyone?

[hrothgar]

finally17, on Mar 10 2008, 10:44 PM, said:

Quote

The same can not be said if you pop out the battery. I'd be quite surprised if you can feasibly detect a cell phone sans battery.

I would be quite surprised if you COULDN'T detect a cell phone without the battery. Have you heard of RFID for instance? An RFID tag requires no battery, is small enough to be included on ID cards which you carry in your wallet, and can be read from pretty great distances (it depends on the tag I'm sure, but the ones on new US passports can be read from 10 meters).

I don't know if cell phones generally have RFID tags in them, but there's some pretty sophisticated electronic circuitry there. It's at best naive to believe that it's not possible to develop something like RFID that would respond to the presence of that circuitry.

If I were a betting man I'd definitely take the bet that such tech exists, and even that someone who knew what they were doing and had a Radio Shack in driving distance could build such a machine.

I'm well aware of RFID.

A couple close friends of mine are principles at ThingMagic (one of the leading companies in the RFID space).

I also know about induction and the like...

However, I'm also aware that most RFID systems can be shielded with the right type of bag. Please recall, the goal is not to come up with a mechanism to detect a random cell phone. The goal is to come up with a mechanism to detect electronic communications systems that are being use to cheat.

If someone is going through the time and bother to pop battery from their cell phone they'll probably also put in in a shielded baggie.

If they don't do so up front, they'll do so the first time someone gets caught...

As I mentioned, if you focus on the hardware side of things you're just going to create an arm's race...

Its much better to destroy the incentives to cheat by limiting benefits from using these types of communciations devices.

[david_c]

TimG, on Mar 10 2008, 08:21 PM, said:

david_c, on Mar 10 2008, 02:06 PM, said:

I don't know much about what happens in America. But where I come from, bridge competitions are run for the benefit of the players. The most important thing is making sure your average player has a good time.

You average player isn't playing in the events for which these rules are intended.

OK I didn't put that very well. I really just wanted to exclude the pros. Everyone else is there because they want to have a good time. I think that taking away their mobile phones is one way to stop them having a good time.

[blackshoe]

I'm sorry, sir/ma'am. Electronic devices are prohibited here. You will have leave your pacemaker in your room.